U's ancient rare map on display in D.C.

A surpassingly rare map that will eventually be housed at the University of Minnesota went on display Tuesday at the Library of Congress.

The 400-year-old map, which shows China at the center of the known world, was acquired last fall by the James Ford Bell Library at the university.

Ancient document enthusiasts have dubbed it "the impossible black tulip of cartography," because of its rarity, importance and exoticism.

The map -- one of only two in good condition -- was purchased by the James Ford Bell Trust in October for $1 million, making it the second most-expensive rare map ever sold. It had been held for years by a private collector in Japan and will eventually be housed at the Bell Library at the university.

"We think this is pretty spectacular," said Ford W. Bell, co-trustee of the fund started by his grandfather James Ford Bell, founder of General Mills.

Bell, who's also president of the American Association of Museums, said the map symbolizes the first connection between Eastern and Western thinking and commerce.

The Bell Library's focus "is on the development of trade and how that drove civilization -- how that constant desire to find new markets to sell new products led to exchanges of knowledge, science, technology and really drove civilization," Bell said. "So (the map) fits in beautifully."

The map created by Matteo Ricci was the first in Chinese to show the Americas. Ricci, a Jesuit missionary from Italy, was the first Westerner to visit what is now Beijing in the late 1500s. Known for introducing Western science to China, Ricci created the map in 1602 at the request of Emperor Wanli.

The map includes pictures and annotations describing different regions of the world. Africa was noted to have the world's highest mountain and longest river. The description of North America is brief with mentions of "humped oxen" or bison, wild horses and a region named "Ka-na-ta."

Several South American places are named, including "Wa-ti-ma-la" (Guatemala), "Yu-ho-t'ang" (Yucatan) and "Chih-Li" (Chile).

Ricci gave a brief description of the discovery of the Americas.

"In olden days, nobody had ever known that there were such places as North and South America or Magellanica," he wrote. "But a hundred years ago, Europeans came sailing in their ships to parts of the sea coast, and so discovered them."

After the Library of Congress display, the map will be exhibited at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, which has an extensive collection of Chinese art and artifacts. It will then be transferred to the Bell library.

Staff writer Mary Abbe and the Associated Press contributed to this report.